SAAS based project management platform, scalable, with team collaboration, great dash-boarding
Pros
ease of use
scalable
Social
Service and Support
customizations
Updates
Adaptability
Financial Management
Cons
Cost
Agile framework needs attention
Reporting Graphs are limited in selection
limited amount of Graphs per report
Scheduling options are limited to 24 reports , 1 per hour
Full featured - but huge code base
Good. It was a disaster switching to Redbooth, and it was a major upgrade from Basecamp. Maybe it was too big of a jump for a smaller organization.
Pros
It's like the rolls royce of project management systems. Super powerful and hard to really throw stones at the functionality.
Cons
The biggest learning curve because it has specific ways that it manages workflows. It's great. But you need a dedicated team member to just learn and train people on it.
PM tool is not bad, but integrated time/expense/invoice processing did not work.
We got very little benefit from this software, as it did not perform as expected.
Pros
Project management tool is comparable to MS Project. Users that are looking for a subscription PM product rather than purchasing MS Project may benefit from this software, but I am not sure if all PM features are available out-of-the-box at cheaper subscription levels.
Cons
Although the PM tool is comparable to MS Project, it also comes with a level of complication also comparable to MS Project. Full functionality of PM (i.e. including resource management) requires buy-in by all departments/users in the company, and this is difficult to acheive in large or diverse organizations.
Our company implemeted this software with the goal of bringing project management together with time reporting, expense reporting, and invoice processing. The purpose of implementing Clarizen was to have a centralized system where we could report project status by including all relevant metrics on the project in a list or detailed view, e.g. planned time vs. actual time, planned cost vs. actual cost, and project manager comments/narrative on goal vs. result. This purpose was never realized. Clarizen underestimated the work effort to develop customizations, which resulted in the time module never being completed, the expense/invoice modules were cumbersome to use, the related approval workflows had many problems, and support from Clarizen management was almost non-existent.
We are now taking a different approach. No longer do we believe that one system can handle all our needs, and so we have adopted different systems with some integration between them to try to bring together all project-related data.
A mostly positive experience.
We are implementing Clarizen as a project management tool for the entire organization but starting in the Information Technology and Performance Improvement departments. Our goal is to capture all project requests and projects in one place for review, approval, management, and reporting. Clarizen has mostly met our expectations so far. Most of the items that have not met our expectations are minor. We are still early in our implementation so there are still lessons to learn in our journey.
Pros
1. Unlimited email-only users. Resources that infrequently or rarely work on projects can report progress via email without consuming an expensive license.
2. Email and/or API integration with work order systems. Clarizen doesn't charge an expensive license to integrate it with other systems.
3. A modern-looking user interface with an emphasis on social media-like collaboration.
4. Lots of options for charts and graphs for reporting.
5. Can import spreadsheets and MS Project workplans.
6. Lots of training and support webinars every week.
7. Pre-recorded online training via the Clarizen University.
Cons
1. Support seems slow to respond to support requests.
2. There is currently a bug they haven't fixed yet that requires you to keep resetting column widths in reports and dashboards. They don't stick.
3. Their online self-help knowledge base seems new and thin.
4. They don't have a feature I used in other project management software to identify the last (most recent) note, comment, etc. on an item. This can be worked around via user training or some custom workflow programming but it would be nice if they built it in as others have.
Everything we needed to take our team to the next level
We needed to evaluate how we could best deliver a quick first time to value for our customers on our implementation team.
Pros
Clarizen enabled our team to effectively manage the numerous projects we had while surfacing the insights we needed to make business decisions.
Cons
Like any software that is aimed at solving complex business problems, Clarizen had so many features that it became overwhelming to our team during implementation. When a business has to undergo major changes to their operations, it needs the transition to be as easy as possible. This is more of a critique for most large software solutions as opposed to just Clarizen.
Clarizen a great Project Management Tool
My team has used Clarizen for a little over a year now. I cannot say enough good things on how well it has done for my team and organizing the implementations of our Software. My team from an employee level up to management are able to use Clarizen to run their individual days and teams.
We implement time and attendance software for clients and use Clarizen to organize our Projects with our specific timelines that we have. Clarizen makes it easy for employees to know exactly where they are at with all of their clients and allows management to easily track the progress of their teams.
Pros
Customization. I cannot say enough on how exceptional the Clarizen technical team is with taking our needs and making them happen in the system. One specific example is I formulated a scoring system for incoming clients that based upon how they were going to use our system would be given a "complexity" score so that I could assign higher level clients to my best employees and lower level clients to my lesser experienced employees. Clarizen took my request that I submitted and within a month had the entire scoring system automated and up and running giving me a fantastic tool to use daily.
Cons
Pricing. Clarizen needs to be able to add options on as fixed costs instead of raising the overall monthly rate. My team doesn't use every aspect of the program so when I need more of just one option in the system I shouldn't have to pay for a higher level across the board with more of all their options when I need just one. I am hoping that can change in the future to meet individual client needs.
Clarizen's deep set of tools
We've used Clarizen for a few years now, and it's made a huge difference. I came in with project management experience, but many of our managers were just winging it. We moved from a simple time-tracking application to Clarizen's full fledged Project Management.
That was a bigger step than most were ready for, but it's come into its own. We have visibility to things we didn't have before, and can make data-driven decisions instead of gut-feeling our way along. I've been able to prove that instinct was not the correct choice in many cases.
Clarizen won't tell you what to do, but whatever you want to do, you can probably do it with Clarizen. Other packages I've used gave you a methodology with their software, but Clarizen is flexible, nimble, and robust.
Pros
-Lots of customization
-SQL-like API calls
-Detailed data
-Does what it says on the tin
Cons
-Lack of a canned process for organizations that don't know where to start
-I wish it was cheaper :)
Good Project Management Software
Pros
Cloud based , good collaborative environment for project management activities like plan and workflow. Cost effective solution.
Cons
Tracking is not easy, need some improvements on functionality. Interfaces development is not easy take long time.
User friendly product with tons of benefits
In short I would say it’s a great intuitive application to form new profitability reports and to create meaningful collaboration.
Pros
It enables me to make more informed decisions with more efficiency. For me it’s a good application to increase the effectiveness in supporting different work methods to even accelerate execution at the team level as well.
Cons
It’s a great helper to respond immediately and also helps in collaborating with real time information and even to highlight potential issues. I do not find any downside in it.
Serious and Specialized System
Clarizen is not a generic light tool for simply task scheduling and contact management. It is a serious project management software done by project managers for project managers.
Pros
It profoundly covers all aspects of project management, very customisable, with advanced reporting and custom fields.
Cons
There is always a room for improvement, Clarizen is relatively a new product that needs to build an ecosystem around it. That includes more integrations with other cloud services, 3rd party products in its marketPlace, and faster customer support.
Clarizen has been a solid tool for us when expanding our professional services organization.
Visibility into projects across the entire professional services portfolio. This gave us a better understanding of our teams and how they were utilized.
Pros
The ability to customize Clarizen is one of it's strongest features. While not as advanced as some of the bigger SaaS players like Salesforce, it still provides a robust set of features to allow you to create custom business processes to accomplish your companies goals. They compete pretty well against other companies with much larger teams.
Another great feature we use a lot is the expansive and complex WBSs you can have for projects. This allowed us to have a better sense of project flow and visibility to where our projects are at.
Cons
Our biggest struggle comes with the idea that a PSA should be a three legged stool (projects/task management, time tracking/resource management, and project financial management). We can only seem to make two work at a time with Clarizen. Our PMs want some pretty detailed project plans to really understand where tasks are and who is responsible, but when you implement that with time tracking it becomes a nightmare for resources to know where to submit there time entries.
As our organization grew, the financials and resource management became more important that detailed project plans so we struggled to find a balance of how detailed our WBSs should be because everything within the project plan was tied to time entries and drove project cost. It has become pretty administrative for some of our PMs.
Love Clarizen!
My organization selected Clarizen from a wide array of project management software options just over 2 years ago and we're very happy with our decision.
We're a training organization, so slack built into most projects is used up before we get the handoff. This means we must be very efficient and well-coordinated. Clarizen gives us what we need all in a single application. Social, email, file attachment/link to work items... prevent us from checking multiple sources for information.
We've customized Work Plans and documentation templates our project managers use to quickly execute tasks. The social functions have replace our Outlook email and we've found that makes projects much more transparent and eliminates hidden agendas that often hit projects.
Clarizen support is phenomenal! We have a dedicated expert that currently meets with us every other week and I get quick resolution to any issue posted to their Support Request Center. The dedicated expert has been especially helpful as we're constantly customizing the system to the point that it will soon become the training department's operating system with schedules, timesheets, project plans... everything right in Clarizen.
Pros
All in one; Social, Work Plans, Scheduling...
Cons
The User Guide is useless.
Finally one project management platform that got it all
Pros
One single platform where both project information and customer information meet, thanks to the Salesforce.com integration. This enables salespeople to keep a real-time view on margins and project progress, without them needing to ask a project manager for a status update or a meeting. The information is right there, up to date and accurate.
Cons
You need to make a solid business case and build a real plan to get the budget approved. Most companies have a lot of tools and some work together with others and... but none beat Clarizen if you ask me - it is a "one-stop" to get all information. So do the math to show you can save money by centralizing the tools, and that you can lower the time spent on managing different solutions. It helps if you show dashboards: management likes dashboards (and numbers).
Clarizen was not so easy to explain to the whole team, it is a very complete solution. So we decided to "drip-feed" it to the teams.
Great project management system with good flexibility
Clarizen is a great platform for project management, workflow management and internal communication tracking. The reporting suite is also very good and there seems to be a keen drive to continually improve the product.
Customer support throughout setup and launch was excellent with a product specialist available onsite, phone and web-conference to help train our team and customize our environment. Despite some challenging requests our support team and the flexibility of the system allowed to achieve near all our requirements thus far.
Pros
Flexibility/Customisation - the system is extremely adaptable and can be used for a number of functions beyond that which it was designed because of it.
Reporting - The reporting suite is excellent but there is still room for improvement in terms of pivots and lining relevant data in reports.
Cons
Support - Although our setup support was great there can be a delay in resolving system bugs but no more than most software services.
Caps on custom fields - There are caps on customisation depending on the package you choose and the price hike between them can be quite significant.
Enterprise grade PSA Solution
As our organization grew we knew need to migrate from our existing PM tool. We initiated an exhaustive search to find the best solution for our business. There are hundreds of "PM" tools out there of various shapes and sizes. We quickly narrowed this down to a handful of potential partners. We found Clarizen to be the best fit for our business. Clarizen accomplished 80% of our requirements out of the box. Because of the solutions extreme flexibility we were able to develop custom workflows to meet the rest of our requirements. Clarizen is scaleable to meet our growing business needs.
Pros
Extremely flexible in all aspects of the solution. The end user can customize the views to best fit his specific work requirements. Sys Admins can configure the system to provide custom functionality. Software updates occur regularly and they provide meaningful enhancements and bug fixes. Support has been great.
Cons
Honestly, not come to mind.
Definitely, one of the most comprehensive (in good way) system between alike frameworks!
Not only entering timesheets, but also do proper estimations for the project budgeting and resource planning!
Pros
The ability to automatically track the tasks start/end dates if there are dependencies set up as well as when there are vacations or holidays for a person. The automatic smart systems make huge help for any human mistake on those calcualtions and future possible changes. Thanks for this!
Cons
When someone creates a vacation request in Clarizen, it would be good to have a notification mechanism to inform the project manager about it, if the person is assigned to a task of this PM's project(s). Otherwise, only the direct manager of the person is being announced. And if there is no established manual process, the vacation request gets approved without the PM being informed about it. This is really serious problem.
The "Swiss Army Knife" of Project Management
Working with Clarizen for a few years. Started before the rich reporting capability existed. Using it for Portfolio and Project Management in an Advanced Engineering Product Development team.
Pros
It is Microsoft Project Management on steroids. It gives you the same capability to manage a project but adds features to provide a complete solution. Easy customization to fit each department needs. Resource Management across of projects, Collaboration at all levels, robust reporting module...
Cons
The reporting module provides the capability to easily create dashboards. I have created dashboards for every level and function of the organization. However, it is difficult for a manager to see his staff's dashboard.
Full Featured Project Management Software
Clarizen is the foundation of our project management process. It provides a wide range of features and customization to support the needs of our design team, project managers, production, upper management and sales staff. With customized reports, each team member can see the data that is important to them. With customized views estimating can see what is important to them, sales can see that they need and project management can see their information. The dashboards are great to show a snapshot of how many projects are doing. It is obvious the people at Clarizen have put a lot of time and effort developing and refining the project management process. It's a great program to get everyone on your team involved
Pros
The almost unlimited features and options
Cons
There are almost too many choices, it takes a while to really gain a full understanding of how everything works
This is the best project management tool I've used
Great visibility into my projects.
Pros
The tool offers A LOT of functionality. As I'm not a system administrator, I am not aware of everything that Clarizen can do, but whenever our admins unleash a new feature, I'm always excited by it. The new Android app is super nice/handy to have, especially for logging time. The support is great: we have logged bugs before, and these are generally resolved very fast. I am not blocked for long whenever something like that happens.
Cons
The fact that there are so many features also has a downside. I feel like there is a lot more to discover, and sometimes, things are no consistent. For example, in some views, I can hide the right-hand vertical "space" (or menu) and in others, I can't. I also find that column resizing is quite burdensome, and I have to resize columns in multiple views (it doesn't propagate.)
Effective & Customisable Project Management Tool
Clarizen has moved us from spreadsheet based project management to collaborative, efficient portfolio management. Adopting Clarizen was straight-forward and it was quick to see the benefits. Managing many projects simultaneously across many customers and project types is now possible and manageable.
Our development team have a much easier time of knowing what they should be working on in disparate cross-company project teams. The accompanying iPhone and Android apps help ensuring time-sheets are kept updated and communications are not missed.
It is hugely customisable in regards to setting up simple forms, workflows with notifications and visual aids. We've been able to recreate our own methodologies in Clarizen.
The only issue we have had is reaching the limit of custom fields possible without moving to the unlimited license model.
Support has been excellent and dependable.
Highly Recommended
We used Clarizen for our project management. It is easy to learn, user friendly and our employees love it.
Pros
The user friendliness of Clarizen can not be beat. Recently, our company moved to Clarizen for project tracking and the transition couldn't have been easier. Employees rave about the ease of the system.
Cons
If i had to choose, the disconnect between Projects and tasks on the same view.
It would be nice to have these without the need of workflows to integrate them.
Improves our business processes and communication
After launching Clarizen in our organization, it was easier than ever before to do resource management and get timesheets in. Therefore the data is more accurate so we can now make sound business decision based on accurate information.
Pros
It's easy to use and to change configuration or customize to best meet your user's needs.
Cons
Cost management is great but could use the concept of effective date to make it easy to use when spanning the fiscal year or promoting individuals.
Clarizen: Perpetual Motion Towards Great
I started using Clarizen 18 months ago to manage multiple complex projects and to corral a pool of shared resources. Out of the gate, Clarion performed well. But what I am most impressed with is the perpetual evolution towards great. Updates are delivered on a regular basis and deliver meaningful improvements.
Pros
At its core, Clarion is a strong project portfolio management tool. The social media element is seamlessly incorporated and has added a valuable dimension to project management. The resource management component is strong and just got stronger with the Summer '15 update. And, most important, Clarizen provides a high-availability SaaS platform. They haven't left me hanging.
Cons
I am still waiting for a mechanism to assign multiple managers to a task. Our projects span multiple shifts. I need a mechanism to allow all shift supervisors to adjust tasks and sub-tasks as needed.
The pricing model could be improved. The number of customizations are limited in all except the Enterprise package. We use all three customizations in our package and, at times, turn some off so we can turn others on. Surely a better balance can be reached.
A flexible, intutive tool that is packed with features
Pros
Working with Clarizen is always easy, they are incredibly helpful and their Professional Services support is outstanding. Developing a custom timesheet module for our specific needs was never a problem for them and they have delivered far in excess of the original brief.
The layout and format of the system is so intuitive we have not needed to undertake lengthy training sessions to our users, almost all have found themselves navigating and operating without issue with only a basic introductory training session.
Cons
The only area where development is still required is the reporting tools. These tools are good, but they are not at the high level that I would want. That said there is significant development taking place that I am aware of and updates are made to improve this area particularly on a regular basis.
The tool does have the ability to export almost all data to Excel so if you can't do something within the reporting tools available, you probably can externally.
Fantastic software!
Pros
It is a phenomenal software because it offers great features to carry out a great management of business projects from the handling of mail, schedules and much more, offers excellent support as they answer any questions or problems personally ie go to the company to solve the inconvenience in the best time possible so not be satisfied with this great tool would be inappropriate because unlike other software works very well and provide a perfect orientation thus allowing to understand the operation of the software quickly that is why it is truly useful because through it we have everything in one place.
Cons
It may present some flaws but due to its very effective support it is something for which the use of this great software should not be limited.
